Terror Firma. Matthew Thomas

When Becker had first purchased the cabin, to allow himself to escape the tortured freneticism of his double working-life, he’d discovered the monstrosity in a box of junk pushed to the back of an outhouse. In a fit of whimsy, the sort that can only descend over a man under the mind-buckling pressure that he experienced every day, Becker had made it his own personal phone.

      Today Mickey looked like he was having an epileptic fit. His eerily electric voice screamed, ‘IT’S FOR YOU! IT’S FOR YOU!’ Becker reached for the bright yellow handset in disgust, as much to put the radar-eared rodent out of his misery as to answer the call.

      But when the caller introduced herself, the Dark Man’s face lightened considerably – it was an editor from Karl Popf Stein, the major New York publishing house whose address he knew only too well. Two months earlier Becker had sent her a very special package. But as the conversation progressed, the look of hope slipped from Becker’s face, badly staining his shirt in the process.

      ‘Look, Mr Decker. Time for a bit of honesty, I think. There’s no call for this sort of fiction anymore. The public don’t go for this heavy-handed the world’s in peril stuff. They want fluff, and I doubt very much you can do fluff. So please, stop harassing this office or I’ll be forced to call in the authorities. Your hysterical e-mails are giving our server a nervous breakdown.’

      Becker’s face began to exude the sort of infrared radiation which had been known to cause men to spontaneously combust. This was too much to take, coming no doubt from someone who was a dope-smoking English Lit major, who probably wet her unbleached Nicaraguan-cotton panties at the first sign of a parking ticket.

      ‘It’s … not … fiction,’ he just about managed to stammer. ‘That manuscript covers my experiences running the Secret Government’s Black Operations Programme. It details why ‘‘what happens’’ happens. It’s all explained – from what really went on at Pear Harbor to the lies behind alien abduction. From the Gulf War to ‘‘daytime chat shows’’. It’s political dynamite. Have you got any idea what a risk I’m taking just sending it to you!’

      She cut him off mid stride. ‘Quite frankly the only risk involved must have been to the poor Federal Mail employee who delivered it to our door – quite a tome, isn’t it. It needs severe pruning. I suggest you get yourself a ruler and a red pen and starting with the first line, get cutting. Then keep cutting all the way to the end.’

      Darkest despair gripped Becker, as his cultured voice reached a thunderous new intensity. ‘But it’s all true! Don’t you recognize the blockbuster of the century when you read it? This book lays the secrets of the world bare and breathless, like a big-haired White House intern – one who’s just had done to her what you can do to your competitors.’

      The editor sounded wary, perhaps suspicious of being further sucked in by the madman down the line. ‘But why would an individual in your position bare his soul like this? If half of what you say is true you must be crazier than if it isn’t.’

      Becker couldn’t believe some people’s cynicism. The words tumbled forth in an avalanche that had been building for years. ‘Have you even bothered to read my conclusion on the last page? There’s a paralysis at the very top of our leadership. A reluctance to face facts. We can’t rule out the possibility that someone high up on the Committee has an agenda all their own!’

      ‘I’m afraid I didn’t get that far. I found your claim that the Vietnam protest movement was all part of some vast CIA mind-control experiment alarming and offensive. I was part of that movement and I can assure you that CIA agents did not supply any of the LSD I took. I suppose you’ll be claiming they were sleeping with us next to monitor our responses.’

      Becker could only make strangled wheezing noises as the editor continued. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by her insight or appalled by her lack of vision.

      ‘And as for your prediction that ‘‘The Subversive Power undermining the Committee will soon up the stakes by staging ever-more irrational and paranoia-inducing events,’’ well, I found that simply bizarre. What is this ‘‘final killer blow prior to harvesting’’ you are forever alluding to? Our Science Fiction department might be interested, but we certainly couldn’t publish it as a biography, we’d be the laughing stock of the publishing world – and believe me that’s a hard-fought title. I suppose what I’m trying to say is please stop phoning us every day, you’re wasting our time and yours. I’d recommend a shrink but I don’t want to hurt him.’

      Before Becker could respond the line went dead. His rage was frightening to behold. Mickey went flying through a window, braining a passing skunk as it ploughed into the needle-covered forest floor.

      Slowly, and with many choice curses in several different languages, Becker got his reeling emotions back under control. When he was his normal Antarctic self he picked up the black phone and dialled a very special number. Half a mile beneath the Pentagon a four-star Air Force General sprang to his feet and saluted when he heard his master’s voice.

      ‘Start me a war. It doesn’t have to be big, but make it bloody and make it soon. Our friend in Baghdad is due another spanking.’

      Perhaps sensing this wasn’t the best time to be the bearer of bad news, there was a note of agitation in the General’s voice. ‘That might not be a problem for long, sir – you haven’t heard the news from Urgistan? But there’s something even more urgent you should know. There’s been a Case Red incident in Nevada.’

      Instantly Becker’s mood changed. ‘You know the drill, we’ve been through it enough times in the past.’

      ‘I’m afraid it’s different this time, sir. Some other agency beat us to the draw. One of the Visitors was abducted, along with certain papers of yours they had in their possession.’

      The telephone line went ominously quiet. ‘What sort of … personal papers?’

      ‘We don’t as of yet know. But somehow, before the Visitors went AWOL from their holding area at the Mesa Facility, they broke into your personal apartment and rifled through your things. We have surveillance footage of them exiting the base carrying a large blue book. Image enhancement can just make out the letters ‘‘MJ’’ embossed on the cover. We ran checks but there’s no record of it being an official file. Sir? Are you still there, sir?’

      The receiver slipped from Becker’s grasp. With a sob of rage he reflected that publication of his manuscript might not be a problem in the near future. The harm it would cause if it were done in the wrong way made him shiver.

       7. Strange Harvest

       Somerset, UK

      Kate Jennings prided herself on her open mind, cool professional objectivity and the control she exercised over her career, but this job was beginning to get under her skin. There was something about it that made her brain itch, as if a thousand locusts were dancing on her scalp.

      ‘Maybe you should go through it again from the top, Mr Smith,’ she said.

      The subject of her interview didn’t seem any more comfortable. The young man glanced around the untidy farmhouse kitchen as if expecting to be pounced on at any moment. ‘It was like I said to your researcher on the phone – not of this Earth.’

      Kate tried hard to appreciate his guarded country ways for what they were – a charming aspect of rural life that would not survive the building of one more motorway but even that was beginning to irritate her now. ‘Start again – slowly from the beginning, and I’ll just turn on my tape recorder, this time without you getting upset.’

      The young farmer looked at her oddly for a second. ‘There’s no need to patronize me, Miss Jennings. Just because I don’t live within gobbing range of a tube station and dodge hordes of muggers each time I go to work, to push bits of paper from one side of a desk to another, doesn’t mean I don’t know which way to sit on a lavatory. We have